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The Decline of Hip Hop

09 November 2014

Hip hop has been on a relative downward spiral and itâ€™s not hard to see why. Hip-hop 20 years ago is radically different from that of today. The music is different, the lyrics are different and heck, even the ideology is different. So why is hip-hop no longer as popular as it once was? What changes took place?

Auto-Tune

What was designed to be technology to fix inaccuracies in singing has been used extensively to not only fix inaccuracies but also make bad singers sound good. One too many hip hop singles are using too much Auto-Tune in their music.

The question of Auto-Tune comes back to its need. Why would you need to use so much Auto-Tune in the first place? Hip-hop fans want original tracks that have not been â€˜Auto-Tunedâ€™. In fact, only some of the top 100 singles have kept this genre alive.

Mix of Genres

Hip-hop, on its own, is a great music genre. It has captivated the hearts and minds of millions of people through the decades. However, hip-hop started to become rather plain. There was very little change in the industry and avid hip-hop listeners started to shy away from the genre. This is when genres started to be mixed.

Adding a spice of techno or rock to a hip-hop track is not a bad idea. However, when you completely fuse the two or let the other dominate the original genre (hip-hop), that is when it is not hip-hop. Throw in Auto-Tune and you have yourself some really bad â€œhip-hopâ€ singles.

One Image

If there was one thing that hip-hop was well known for were its rebellious and â€˜realâ€™ lyrics. The lyrics in any hip-hop track spoke out to the listeners. They were lyrics that people could relate to, admire and enjoy.

However, hip-hop is now mostly centered around sex, money, online casinos, alcohol, partying sometimes gamand skimpy women. There is only so much of the same idea/image that people can take. Nobody wants to listen to why a music artist is better than other people or how they like to roam around in their Lamborghini. They want to listen to lyrics and music that they can relate to - the true idea behind hip-hop.

Although many inspiring efforts have been made to bring life back into the genre, it seems that unless hip-hop goes back to its roots, the music genre may never be the same again.